Course Design Formula: How to Teach Anything to Anyone Online

and use it after said “helper” is gone, you’ll never find anything in there again, no matter how nice it looks. (Don’t ask me how I know this.) The same is true for learning. We learn best when we are able to process, label, and organize new information using our own mental models and our own mental storage and retrieval system.6 We have to build s

Make the work as easy to do as possible. You will learn how in Part Two of this book. Create feedback mechanisms to ensure your students are showing up and doing the work. We’ll go into that in Part Two as well. Use physical, tangible reminders of the commitment learners have made to your course, that you refer to in every lesson. That way, by the

Aha! That’s just where it gets interesting. Because in order to do something, in the how-to sense, you first have to understand exactly what it is you are doing, what (or who) you are doing it to, and under what conditions you are doing it . . . in the intellectual sense. Gagné’s research found that in order to really be able to do something (as op

the actual subject your course is teaching. For example, if your course is about “how to improve your tennis swing,” a motor skill, you might include a section on the “best way to approach mastering your swing” that could include cognitive strategies, such as reviewing videos of great tennis players, having a friend videotape your swing and then wa

Ask yourself: What will my course participants be able to do after completing my course that they can’t do now?

Verbal information. Attitudes. Cognitive strategies. Intellectual skills. Motor skills.

Even though the instructor has already processed and labeled the information, the student needs to process and label it again for her own brain’s storage area. That’s because when we process, label, and store information, we relate it to what we already know and then store it according to how our own mind works. If you’ve ever had someone else come

Do they already have the schemas they need, so you are now just going to help them put some additional new information into their existing mental storage bins? Or are you going to have to help them build entirely new mental storage bins from scratch (which takes more work on the student’s part and more guidance from you)?

Step 2: From this menu of options, identify and demonstrate the desired attitude choice. Once you have made your learners aware of the different types of attitudes they can choose to adopt, and the costs and benefits of each, it is important to model for them what the right option (the attitude you are trying to teach them) looks like. Learners are

You, the course creator, are at the point of building activities into your lesson to help your students go over the new material you’ve just taught them.